Playdom pays $3m after data abuse

Playdom has payed a $3m settlement after it was charged with breaking the U.S. Child Online Privacy Protection Act.

The social games studio – acquired by Disney last year – has published several titles such as the now closed Pony Stars. The Federal Trade Commission accused a number of these games of collecting children’s ages and email addresses, according to Kotaku.

This personal information that was later posted live without parental content. A reports observes that this is also in violation of Playdom’s internal policies.

The FTC claimed that 821,000 kids were registered for Pony Stars, with another 403,000 signed up to Playdom’s general audience sites. Pony Stars and the other offending games were originally operated by Acclaim, before Playdom acquired the firm in 2010.

FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz warned that games firms and social networks “owe it to parents and their children to provide proper notice and get proper consent”.

He added: “It’s the law, it’s the right thing to do and, as today’s settlement demonstrates, violating COPPA will not come cheap.”

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